how important is tech to you?
Discussion of the art and craft of improvisation.
Moderators: arclight, happywaffle, bradisntclever
Not to be rude, but if I didn't see you at rehearsal, I don't want you making offers during my show. I don't think any tech would walk onstage during another group's performance and start playing uninvited, but that's kind of what you're doing when you add unsolicited lighting and sound cues. The key word here is "unsolicited"; if you ask first and the performers say, "Bring it on," more power to everybody involved.
I appreciate Jeremy bringing this up, because I've played shows where we specifically asked for "lights up, lights down" and still got music and lighting cues throughout the show. So I assume that some people are learning that these are part of the basic responsibilities of the booth. I respectfully disagree.
I think part of the problem in determining a default position is that in genre-based or otherwise predetermined shows you can make more assumptions about what's needed. If a show is explicitly based on film noir, there are genre-specific lighting and scoring decisions you can make that probably won't throw anything too far off track.
But for improv that springs entirely from the immediate moment, that kind of offer can seriously undercut the players, especially if they've established any kind of group mind.
If I turn on the radio in a scene, my partner and I may have already intuitively grasped that we're going to hear a song that lyrically references an earlier plot point . . . but if "Caribbean Queen" comes wafting out of the sound booth, we then have to deal with that instead.
If we do an entire show that dwells on the possibility of an afterlife and then start the last scene by saying, "So this is Hell," we may have the same instinct that Hell is going to look exactly like our previous life . . . but if you flip on a red light, you've undermined that idea, or at very least altered the dramatic effect.
What these examples have in common is that the improvisers wind up having to support the tech offer instead of the other way around.
And yes, of course improv is all about responding to offers you didn't see coming. But typically they come from people you've chosen to work with, and then rehearsed with at some length. (By the same token, I'd exempt free-for-alls like the ColdTowne Jam or Same Year's Eve from constraints on tech offers, if only because you're not walking into an established group dynamic. And I'd be interested to hear how Maestro directors handle this.)
Music in particular is so powerful that it can completely change the point of a scene in seconds. It's presumably easier to score a conventional narrative where you're pretty sure that this is the falling-in-love scene; it's harder to do when the scene could go in one of ten different directions at any minute.
On the other hand, those of us who play regularly at ColdTowne, where we are accompanied by a constant soundtrack from I Luv Video, are probably overromanticizing the possibility of playing a show in which everything the audience sees and hears originates on the stage.
And if any of this offends you, just do like Lubu:
Ratliff: Bryan, use improv money, not real money.
Lubu: You know what? That's a note I'm not gonna take.
I appreciate Jeremy bringing this up, because I've played shows where we specifically asked for "lights up, lights down" and still got music and lighting cues throughout the show. So I assume that some people are learning that these are part of the basic responsibilities of the booth. I respectfully disagree.
I think part of the problem in determining a default position is that in genre-based or otherwise predetermined shows you can make more assumptions about what's needed. If a show is explicitly based on film noir, there are genre-specific lighting and scoring decisions you can make that probably won't throw anything too far off track.
But for improv that springs entirely from the immediate moment, that kind of offer can seriously undercut the players, especially if they've established any kind of group mind.
If I turn on the radio in a scene, my partner and I may have already intuitively grasped that we're going to hear a song that lyrically references an earlier plot point . . . but if "Caribbean Queen" comes wafting out of the sound booth, we then have to deal with that instead.
If we do an entire show that dwells on the possibility of an afterlife and then start the last scene by saying, "So this is Hell," we may have the same instinct that Hell is going to look exactly like our previous life . . . but if you flip on a red light, you've undermined that idea, or at very least altered the dramatic effect.
What these examples have in common is that the improvisers wind up having to support the tech offer instead of the other way around.
And yes, of course improv is all about responding to offers you didn't see coming. But typically they come from people you've chosen to work with, and then rehearsed with at some length. (By the same token, I'd exempt free-for-alls like the ColdTowne Jam or Same Year's Eve from constraints on tech offers, if only because you're not walking into an established group dynamic. And I'd be interested to hear how Maestro directors handle this.)
Music in particular is so powerful that it can completely change the point of a scene in seconds. It's presumably easier to score a conventional narrative where you're pretty sure that this is the falling-in-love scene; it's harder to do when the scene could go in one of ten different directions at any minute.
On the other hand, those of us who play regularly at ColdTowne, where we are accompanied by a constant soundtrack from I Luv Video, are probably overromanticizing the possibility of playing a show in which everything the audience sees and hears originates on the stage.
And if any of this offends you, just do like Lubu:
Ratliff: Bryan, use improv money, not real money.
Lubu: You know what? That's a note I'm not gonna take.
"I'm not a real aspirational cat."
-- TJ Jagodowski
-- TJ Jagodowski
My opinion can be summed up like this:
Tech people, it's your responsibility to check in with the performers before the show.
Performers, it's your responsibility to check in with the tech people before the show.
If I forget to check in, and things don't go the way I like it, I consider it my fault.
Tech people, it's your responsibility to check in with the performers before the show.
Performers, it's your responsibility to check in with the tech people before the show.
If I forget to check in, and things don't go the way I like it, I consider it my fault.
PGraph plays every Thursday at 8pm! https://www.hideouttheatre.com/shows/pgraph/
Elegant, straightforward, and unimpeachably correct, just like Roy.Roy Janik wrote:My opinion can be summed up like this:
Tech people, it's your responsibility to check in with the performers before the show.
Performers, it's your responsibility to check in with the tech people before the show.
If I forget to check in, and things don't go the way I like it, I consider it my fault.
Though I would delete "fault" and substitute "opportunity to unconditionally accept everything that happens," since, y'know, if you're already in that situation anyway, why not?
"I'm not a real aspirational cat."
-- TJ Jagodowski
-- TJ Jagodowski
- jillybee72 Offline
- Posts: 649
- Joined: November 16th, 2009, 1:20 pm
I can see why you're so protective, Ratcliff, because the moves you're talking about like "Caribbean Queen" or a red light hell when offers indicate otherwise are bullshit that someone good at tech wouldn't do. Get a good tech and you can stop feeling this way. We need to start a school so that there's more competence out there.
I think the question here is: What is the default tech?Roy Janik wrote:If I forget to check in, and things don't go the way I like it, I consider it my fault.
If there's no communication between players and the tech person before the show, does that give the tech person license to do whatever he or she feels is right?
I think the default should be just lights up and lights down with music on each end UNLESS there is a conversation beforehand.
"Every cat dies 9 times, but every cat does not truly live 9 lives."
-Bravecat
-Bravecat